Remedial ed rate high in Alabama colleges

Making sure Alabama students enter college prepared for the course work they’ll encounter there is a problem for the state, and has been for a long time.

According to Alabama Commission on Higher Education data, nearly a third of first-year college students end up taking remedial reading or math classes. A sizable percentage must take both.

Greg Fitch has been the executive director of the Alabama Commission on higher education for nearly seven years, and in that time, the remediation rate hasn’t budged much. Fitch said the rate has remained fairly constant, at between 32 and 35 percent. Fitch said differences between K-12 and college curriculum, changing high school curriculum and various other issues contributed to the large number of students in need of remediation.